They are not all oratorios, for Heracles and several others are not religious in subject, but are dramatic epics.
Handel’s sight failed him, but even this did not stop his torrential activity to his death in 1759.
He had become an English subject, so was buried with pomp at Westminster Abbey.
He was loved even though he was fiery of temper, and had a will that no one could conquer.
His music is full of his gusts of feeling but always correct and his art perfect. In his work he always held himself under great control and it mirrors his power and balance. He loved wind instruments and people often considered his music noisy!
He wrote forty-two operas, two passions, ninety-four cantatas, ten pasticcios, serenatas, songs and the instrumental works mentioned above. The famous Handel Largo comes from one of his operas, Xerxes, and was an aria Ombra mai fu (Never was there a Shadow).
Handel used counterpoint, but always knew when to unbend and use delightful flowing melody, so he became popular.
Other men, Hasse, Telemann and Graun, contemporaries of Handel, followed the popular Italian models but without Handel’s genius for melody and sublimity, and were never heard of after their own generation had passed away.
Handel’s Messiah, which he wrote in twenty-four days, was first given in Dublin. It took the people by storm and when the king heard it, thrilled by the “Hallelujah Chorus,” he rose to his feet, and since then it is the custom to stand during that number. It has become the Christmas Oratorio and is sung in churches and societies all over the world. It has lost none of its first popularity among the people and is loved as few works have ever been. It thrills because it is sincere, big, and arouses religious feeling. Oratorio was his special gift to the world and one never hears the name of Handel without thinking of The Messiah.
Handel seemed to reunite the forms: oratorio and opera, under his massive will. At first some of his oratorios were given in costume, showing the influence of opera.